Even though it had been my plan—an uncharacteristically shoddy one brought on by emotions after my mother had told me I should be jumping at the chance to be with dreamboat Hongbo, who had “magically” set his sights on plain ol’ me thanks to his parents’ attraction to my golden vagina—all I could think about now was how I shouldn’t need Andrew. How my no should have been enough. But it never was, not with my parents. When I’d tried to show them Hongbo’s true puke-green colors, they had tsked and slapped me on the wrist for not recognizing how ol’ Dreamboat was so dutiful to his parents he was willing to propose to their top choice regardless of his feelings, as if his motivations were driven by filial piety and honor, not access to his parents’ bank accounts.

I jumped when Andrew’s fingertips grazed my arm, and my previously tense muscles relaxed a smidge. I hadn’t even realized how clenched I’d been.

“I can’t believe my parents are pushing me to marry someone for money,” I whispered. “And not just someone, but the worst person I know.”

I closed my eyes and saw Hongbo from different points of my past: begging for a dog at age ten, then locking her in the laundry room as punishment for stealing the spotlight; peeing on the sandcastle that I’d spent hours on when I was six and he was twelve; telling the Asian community when I was in high school that I was such a prude I must’ve been born with a shriveled vagina.

“I’m really sorry, Jing-Jing,” Andrew said, standing completely still beside me, waiting to see what I needed. Because I’d paid him for that. Everything in my life was fake: my parents, my suitor and his proposal, the boy beside me who was pretending to care.

I fought back tears. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“How about we go get some edible breakfast?” he suggested. “I know an awesome place around here.” When I still wasn’t convinced, he added, “They have a breakfast banh mi with fried egg and chili sauce. And, like, fifty ways to order matcha.”

My James Banh Mi was offering to take me to banh mi. Normally, I’d have laughed, but in this moment I gave an unenthusiastic nod—it was the most I could manage when my mind felt like congee.

We argued over who would call the Uber, and I finally caved when he—the real him, I could tell—said kindly, “I’m off the clock right now, okay? Not hired Andrew—just a friend.”

“Okay,” I finally answered.

We said hello to Paul, 4.8 stars, known to be a good conversationalist, and piled into the back seat.

“Have you ever seen this much mayhem”—I gestured back toward the house—“on the job before?”